http://ens-news.com/ens/jul2002/2002-07-29-09.asp ens Heavier Vehicles Not Always Safer ANN ARBOR, Michigan, July 29, 2002 (ENS) - More quality, not more weight, may make vehicles safer, say researchers from the University of Michigan and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).
The study counters car industry warnings that tighter emissions and fuel efficiency requirements would force the production of smaller, lighter - and less safe - vehicles. Physicist Marc Ross and LBML scientist Tom Wenzel have released a report showing that vehicle quality is a better predictor of safety - both for the driver and for other drivers - than vehicle size and weight. Recent Senate hearings on Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards focused on the increased risk Americans would face if they had to give up their sport utility vehicles (SUVs) for vehicles that weigh less. "We set out to see whether that risk is real, whether SUVs really are safer than cars. The answer, by and large, is no," Ross said. The first major result Ross and Wenzel found is that SUVs are no safer for their drivers than cars. Popular midsize cars, minivans and import luxury cars have the safest records, while SUVs are about as risky as the average midsize or large car, and are no safer than many compact and subcompact models. The researchers defined risk as the number of deaths per year per million vehicles. Other studies have not considered combined risk, which looks at both risk to the driver of the model in question and risk to the drivers of all other vehicles involved in crashes with that model. The study found that, when measuring the combined risk, most cars are safer than SUVs, while pickup trucks are much less safe than all other types of vehicle. "Clearly the characteristics of the drivers of certain types of vehicles also have a strong effect on their safety," Ross said. "However, it is not clear exactly what that effect is, and the age and sex of drivers do not fully explain these results." Some of the safest subcompacts also have a high fraction of young male drivers. At the other extreme, elderly drivers dominate certain large cars but there is no clear pattern suggesting that those cars pose higher risk to drivers of other cars as a result. To determine quality, Ross and Wenzel used quantifiable parameters such as new car price, used car price, Consumer Reports safety ratings, and country of origin. "It is extremely difficult to determine the inherent safety of a vehicle type or model because it is too hard to separate the contribution of driver characteristics and behavior from the contribution of vehicle design. We can say, however, that quality is a much better predictor of safety than weight," Ross said. "It turns out that relatively inexpensive light cars do tend to be unsafe, but more expensive light cars are much safer, and are as safe as heavier cars and SUV models," Ross explained. "In any event, the argument that lowering the weight of cars to achieve high fuel economy has resulted in excess deaths is unfounded. If designers pay careful attention to safety in vehicle design, smaller cars can be, and indeed have been, made as safe as larger ones." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Will You Find True Love? Will You Meet the One? Free Love Reading by phone! http://us.click.yahoo.com/it_ffB/R_ZEAA/Ey.GAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
